Truce
by Delta Omega
Summary: Post Movie. Cobb's team must work together with another successful Inception team when the most valuable member from each of their groups is abducted by someone who's bent on destroying all of them. A/A and E/OC
1. Our Problems Began

"**Life is never easy for those who dream.****" –Robert James Walter**

**Jason- Chicago, IL**

I sat across the table from Darcy, trying to steel my nerves as best I could. She looked calm, if not bored as we talked over our negotiations with our client. I didn't want to look weak compared to her. I'm five years her senior and had always considered myself brave, tough as nails. Even when I was first introduced to the dream world, I was level-headed. That's why I run point. But Darcy's been doing this since she was a little kid. Nothing fazes her, nothing shakes her.

"Miss Gilligan, I must say, this proposal is tempting, and your price is as reasonable as they come…" Our client, Christopher Larson, was rubbing a hand over his bald scalp, silently weighing his options.

"I can assure you, Mr. Larson, that our team is the best there is at performing Inception. We have a successful track record of nearly fifty cases, which I have included in this file for your review." Darcy said, nodding at Larson, her expression weary, as if she had told him this a hundred times. His lips twitched as if he were restraining himself.

"It's only that… I've never heard of you, Miss Gilligan. Or you, Mr. Reynolds, for that matter," he said, flashing me a brief look. "The only successful Inception I've ever heard of was performed not even a month ago by Mr. Cobb and his team." I saw a quick flash of anger cross Darcy's face.

"Truly successful Inception is never publically announced, or even slightly perceptible." Darcy said, her face coloring slightly. "The public eye should never be able to detect it unaided, but if I may give you an example of our work…" She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a manila folder that looked identical to all the others she had provided Larson with. I wondered how she kept them all straight.

"The Martian- Schroder case. Do you remember when Cobalt Corporations had that massive stock-drop last November? That was our work," Darcy said, a little proudly. I remembered that. We'd made their company VP think that the company president was embezzling and he started this whole public feud. I was especially proud because it was my idea.

Larson looked shocked. He looked back and forth between me and Darcy. I knew what he was thinking. We were kids. Young, definitely not that powerful in corporate espionage.

"That's not possible," he said. It sounded like he was daring us to say otherwise.

"Believe it, Mr. Larson." Darcy said. She checked her pocket watch, an old heirloom from her dad. "I'm sorry, but our time here is up. Here's my card. Give me a call if you want to hire." Darcy said. It didn't matter that I couldn't see the face of the watch, I'd never seen it before and I wouldn't know how to read it. It would be ticking backwards. Darcy stood up and straightened out her pencil skirt and tugged on the cuffs of her white blouse. She looked professional. But there was no hiding that she was still only eighteen years old.

Slow, quiet music began to play, Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos. Darcy looked at me sharply. I knew it too. We had too much time left on the clock, at least six minutes left in this dream. Larson's subconscious was not especially well trained, but we'd been in this dream for nearly two hours, they'd definitely taken notice.

As we left the room, Darcy handed me her briefcase. I fished the gun out of it, then dropped the briefcase in a trashcan. I noticed we had a tail and nudged Darcy slightly. She gave an almost imperceptible nod. She noticed. She'd probably noticed ages ago. I saw her pull a gun out of her skirt. Where the hell had she had room for that? I made a mental note to ask her later.

She turned abruptly down a hallway and then, shedding her high-heels, up a staircase. We ducked into a little alcove. She stood facing me, shielding me in a way, as my back was against a wall.

"Should I shoot you first?" She asked courteously.

"No, no, I can do it," I assured her. She looked disbelievingly at me. I had had trouble with this before. Even in a dream, it's _really_ hard to convince yourself to shoot yourself. It goes against instinct. And my instinct was still really strong.

"Are you sure? Last time…" she trailed off. We both remembered last time. She'd let me kill her first and I'd ended up getting shot in the shoulder by the projections because I'd waited too long. It had hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before, so I decided to ditch my pride.

"Right, you shoot me," I said. I closed my eyes and I heard her remove the safety. But before she fired, she let out a strangled scream. I opened my eyes and she was on the floor, clutching her side where she'd been shot. In a matter of seconds, I shot her in the head and she stopped moving. Nathan was going to kill me for that. But I had bigger problems. Like Larson's entire subconscious pointing guns at me. I closed my eyes and pressed the gun to my own head. I couldn't do it.

I opened my eyes and saw that Darcy was already removing Larson's lead and Nathan was collecting all of our stuff. I was on my side on the floor in the operating room. We had been in his head while he underwent a minor shoulder surgery.

"Shit, Dar, I'm so sorry," I said, getting to my feet. She looked at me sharply.

"Don't be sorry, Jason." She chastised me.

"I just can't shoot myself." I said miserably.

"It'll come with time. Until that time comes, we have the kick." She said patiently. God, she was being more tolerant with me than I deserved.

"And trust me, I don't mind giving you the kick," Nathan interjected from across the room.

"I know you don't," I said a little grumpily. Nathan is our architect and Darcy's older cousin. He stuffed a wad of bills into the doctor's hand. Then he gave the doctor a small envelope that I knew contained our calling card.

"Put it on his bedside before he wakes up. Don't let anyone else open it." Nathan instructed. The doctor looked doubtful, but Nathan slid another bill into his coat pocket. Probably a hundred. The doctor gave him a blissful smile and nodded.

"Nathan, we gotta go. Now." Darcy instructed the architect. He didn't like being bossed around by her, but he seemed to agree with this.

"Jason, let's go," Nathan instructed me. I closed up our custom-black case with the sedatives and followed them both out. No one spoke until we got into the car, but I could see that Darcy kept looking at her pocket watch. I was sure that it was ticking forwards again. It was her totem, and it only ran right in the real world.

When we got in the car, I slid into the passenger seat and Darcy made herself comfortable in the back. She immediately began rifling through her backpack while muttering angrily to herself.

"Dammed Dom Cobbs, asshole thinks that he can do Inception once and own the damn business..." She said. I saw Nathan frown. He disapproved of her language. But she was so concretely profane, that he never bothered to correct her.

"Do you want to go back, Dar?" Nathan asked her. She checked her pocket watch again and did some figuring.

"It's seventh period now. It takes like, forty-five minutes to get back… Nah, I'm a senior. Seniors skip out on school all the time." It always slipped my mind that Darcy was still in high school. She didn't seem like a high school student. She acted like a thirty-year-old business person- an efficient machine.

"Alright. The workshop then?" He asked, turning right out onto a busy street. Darcy checked her watch yet again.

"No. I'm actually meeting with someone." Nathan scowled.

"Who?"

"Let's just say that if the meeting goes well, we'll have a forger on the team. Rumor is that he knows a damn good druggist too." Darcy said complacently. Nathan looked unhappy that she'd be doing this solo, but he didn't argue.

"Where do you need to be dropped off?"

"The Corner Bakery on Third and Jefferson," Darcy said dismissively, going through some papers from her backpack. Nathan pulled a U-turn at the next intersection and we sped towards the designated destination. I looked back a couple of times but Darcy was so completely immersed in her work that she didn't seem to notice. I doubted what she was working on was for school, so I tried to peek. She noticed this, and flattened the papers to her chest, scowling at me.

"Turn around," she said stiffly. I held my hands in the air to indicate my innocence and turned to face forward again, only sharing a small grimace with Nathan.

"Darcy, who are you meeting with?" Nathan asked as we neared the bakery. She raised her eyebrows.

"That's classified, Nate."

"Yeah, but I'm your cousin. Not to mention I'm your architect," Nathan said.

"I'm point man," I interjected hopefully.

"Shut up Jason." Darcy snapped at me. She then turned a calmer face on Nathan. "I can't tell you until I know I've got the forger hired for the Weinstein- Elmendorf case. That's all I'm saying." Darcy said. She pulled a few textbooks out of her backpack and replaced them with identical manila folders and a .22. I don't know many eighteen year olds who would arm themselves like that, but in this case, I was glad that she was taking the gun.

As we pulled up, she slid out of the back and slammed the door behind her. She motioned for me to roll down my window. I did as I was instructed.

"Come back to pick me up in an hour. If I call you earlier, it's bad news so you better get here fast. If you're late, I'll start walking." Darcy said. She checked her silver pocket watch again and gave us both a nervous smile as an apology for not telling us what the hell was happening.

"Thanks guys. I promise, whether this works out or not, I'll tell you all about it after." She assured us. Neither of us was especially moved by this act which Darcy clearly considered charitable. When no one reacted to her offer, she gave the side of the car a slap to say "all clear" and she strutted into the bakery. I looked to Nathan, and he looked pissed.

"She was out of line, Nate," I promised him, to assure him I was on his side.

"She's eight-fucking-teen. I'm thirty-three and I'm acting like her bitch, just because she's a fucking god in the dream world. Out here, I'm the boss of her." He said. It sounded more like he was talking to himself than he was talking to me.

"We should go back and meet the forger with her." I suggested.

"I should go back and meet the forger," he repeated. I shook my head.

"No, no, _we_ should go-"

"Shut up." Nathan said. He pulled another U-turn and headed back towards the bakery. I sulked in my seat the whole way there. When we pulled up, he was lucky enough to get a spot right in front of the door. When he turned off the car, he looked at me.

"Stay in the car," he told me. I waited until he was through the bakery door.

"Stay in the car, my ass," I muttered. As I entered the bakery, I was met by a pale-faced Nathan. At first I thought he was going to chew me out for following him, but then I saw that he was truly distraught.

"She's not here." He said, his voice high and panicked.

"Shit, no way. We dropped her off less than ten minutes ago," I said. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see if she had called. Nothing. Nathan did the same and got the same result.

"Where the hell is she?" Nathan asked me in a low voice.

"Maybe she's meeting him somewhere else. We should just wait here," I suggested, trying to keep a cool head. The kid had brought a .22 pistol in her backpack. I had a hard time believing that _she _was the one in trouble.

But an hour passed, and there was no sign of Darcy. At Nathan's request, we stayed there for hours. We couldn't contact the police about a thief going missing, even though it was likely that she didn't disappear of her own free will. Darcy Gilligan was, after all, worth millions, dead or alive.

**A/N: I know, I know, I'll bring in the original chracters in the next chapter, I promise. I just wanted to give a basis of who the original characters are.**

**Reviews are encouraged, and *constructive* cristicism is welcome!**


	2. Before We Knew It

"**If we couldn't dream, our lives wouldn't mean anything anymore." –Georg Kaiser**

**Arthur- Los Angeles, CA**

"Cobb, open up, it's me, it's Arthur."I banged on the front door. I heard the pattering of smaller feet and knew that one of the kids would open the door. They'd met "Uncle Arthur" before. I brought them presents. This time was no exception. A fancy doll from France that Ariadne had sent for Phillipa and a stuffed bear for James. They always loved the presents, and by extension, they'd grown to love me.

The door cracked open and I saw Phillipa's little face poking through the crack. She gasped, like I was the Easter Bunny or something, then threw the door open wide.

"Uncle Arthur!" She shrieked. "Daddy! Daddy, Uncle Arthur is here!" She threw herself around my legs and buried her face into my knees. She was still in that position when Cobb came up to the door, James in his arms.

"You bring me a present, Uncle Arthur?" James asked. But his little lisp was so bad that it sounded more like "You bwing me a pwesent, Un-kuh Awfuh?" I couldn't help but crack a small smile.

"You like bears, James?"

"I like bears!" James chirped in confirmation. I pulled out the stuffed animal and he hugged it like it was already his favorite toy. I presented Phillipa with her doll when she let go of my knees and told her that it was a special doll all the way from France. She looked at me with wide eyes and held the doll like it was made of glass.

"Hello, Arthur," Cobb said. His expression was light enough, but I could hear the gravity in his words. He didn't want me to be here. Whenever I came, I was trying to bring him back into our world, trying to bring him back to the team that now only consisted of me, Ariadne and Eames. Ariadne was wonderful, of course, but sometimes I questioned whether it would be too extreme to land a punch on Eames' smug face.

"Cobb. Can we talk?" Cobb looked at his kids. They looked right back at him.

"Why don't you two go play in Phillipa's room while I have a grown-up talk with Uncle Arthur?" Cobb suggested mildly to his kids.

"Okay! We'll play with our presents! Thank you Uncle Arthur!" Phillipa said dutifully. James was already halfway up the stairs, clutching the big brown bear under one arm. Once they were gone, Cobb looked at me, suddenly very serious.

"Arthur, if I've told you once, I've told you one hundred times, I don't do this anymore. My responsibility is to James and Phillipa," Cobb said somewhat harshly. I didn't even blink.

"We think Eames was bought out." I said. Cobb looked surprised.

"I thought you and he-"

"That doesn't matter." I said hastily "The problem is that we lost our forger, and Yusuf won't stay long without him. That'll leave out team with an architect and a point-man." I said a little angrily.

"What am I supposed to do about it?" Cobb asked a little sullenly. He knew that he was being an ass for abandoning us and letting our livelihoods disintegrate.

"You need to help us figure out who got to him. Someone bought him out, I know it. That's the only way Eames does anything- for a shitload of money," I spat, voicing my disgust. It was disgusting that a man's loyalty could be bought.

"Hey, take it easy, Eames has been there for us, push come to shove," Cobb said defensively. But I could see the doubt in his eyes.

"Find him for us Cobb." I said. I couldn't believe I was begging for that guy, but I was. Forgers were invaluable tools in Inception and Extraction. I may have hated the guy, but he was worth a lot. You can count the number of Forgers in the world on one hand.

"Listen, I know I guy, I'll get in touch with him, we'll figure this out," Cobb said.

"Who could you possibly know who could figure this out?" I asked a little desperately.

"Sean Gilligan. He's a genius. He knows about every Inception that goes over, every Inception that bombs, hell, he knows about every measly Extraction that happens." Cobb said. I'd never heard him speak with such reverence about… well, just about anyone.

"And you can contact him?" I asked, a little surprised. Cobb looked proud.

"I was one of the first people he trained to perform Extraction and Inception. There were only two others- This Indian guy named Raj Patel and his own daughter, Darcy." Cobb's expression was nostalgic, like it was some of the best time of his life.

"And?" I prompted. I didn't have the time to sit around and watch him reminisce.

"I bet it's Darcy who "stole" Eames. From what I heard, Raj killed himself a couple of years ago, and I've never heard anything about Darcy… which leads me to believe that she's the only other person who'd actually know what to do with Eames if they got him." Cobb said seriously.

"So you think we can contact her through her dad?" I asked in an attempt to hurry the conversation along.

"Probably. I'm pretty sure she's still a teenager." Cobb said thoughtfully. I shook my head and held my hands in a "timeout" symbol.

"You were trained- what?- ten years ago?" I asked a little weakly. I hadn't started my training until I was eighteen and it took me years to master all the complexities of the dream.

"Yeah, Sean's got a few screws loose up there. But how could you not if you were capable of creating Inception?" Cobb said, putting a finger to his temple. "She wasn't even ten when we started training. She was seven, maybe eight. Sean wanted her to be _the best_. I think he taught her stuff that he didn't even teach me and Raj." Cobb seemed a little resentful at that. I felt my cheeks coloring slightly.

"So you think we're losing our forger because we're being out-bidded by a teenager?" I asked furiously. That was embarrassing, infuriating, and I wouldn't stand for it. Cobb thought about it for a moment.

"Definitely."

"Shit, man," I said angrily. "You have to tell me where we can find this guy."

"Chicago." Cobb said. "I'll call him for you, so he'll expect you. I'll get you the address. But I'm not helping. I'm staying with the kids." I nodded. But I knew that Cobb was the kind of guy who was in for a penny, in for a pound.

"Sure, sure. Well, I'm going to get going. I have to book a couple of seats on the next flight out to Chicago." I said, turning towards the door.

"Wait," Cobb called. He stood and followed me to the door. "You'll let me know how things are going right? I mean, I still want you guys to get Eames back." I inclined my head only slightly.

"Sure, Cobb." I said, a little more stiffly. He nodded his thanks, and I left the house. When I got back in the car, Ariadne was waiting anxiously.

"How did it go?" Ariadne asked. She was sitting in the passenger seat with her feet on the dashboard, exactly where I had told her _not_ to put them.

"Feet down, Ari," I reminded her gently. She swung them down and slouched in her seat.

"Is Cobb in, or what?" She asked, looking up at me with her warm brown eyes.

"He says he's just doing us a little favor. He says he's going to try and call the guys who bought out Eames and see if we can reach an arrangement. But he's totally in. We should expect him to follow us within a couple of days." Ariadne nodded, satisfied.

"Where are we going?" She asked. I relayed Cobb's claim to her, and she agreed wholeheartedly that we should get out there, before they actually used our Forger.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**Chicago, IL**

We flew into O'Hare airport and checked into an upscale hotel downtown. We got a shared suite on the top floor. It had separate bedrooms, much to my disappointment. Ariadne, forever the grad student, was absolutely stunned by our suite. I found it to be merely satisfactory.

"Have you gotten Cobb's call yet?" Ariadne asked me as she flopped down on my bed. It bothered me that she had wrinkled the covers, but I held back my reprimands.

"Not yet. I think you'll know when I do," I told her. She nodded and laid back on my bed, only mussing it up further. I watched her warily. Ever since the Saito-Fischer job, I hadn't been quite sure what to do with Ariadne. I mean, we never talked about our kiss on the second level down; she never made any advances of her own accord. I was nothing if not methodical and objective, but with this damn architect, I couldn't seem to figure things out.

"Hey, Ariadne." I said, looking at her suddenly. She looked back at me with raised eyebrows- curious.

"Yeah?" Ariadne replied. She sounded hopeful- or was that just me being delusional?

"Do you maybe want to go to dinner or something? I mean, while we wait for Cobb's news?" I sounded stupid even to myself. I was never so insecure. She smiled a little, only one corner of her mouth pulling up.

"Yeah, yeah, that sounds really good. Where do you want to go?" She asked. I smiled. That was one hurdle cleared.

"Well do you want to go somewhere fancy or low-key?" I asked. I knew what her answer would be.

"Low-key. I don't really want to get dressed up for it," she said, smirking a little at my perfectly straight tie. I felt it a little self-consciously before I untied it, then unbuttoned the first button on my shirt. I felt bare and naked without a jacket or even a tie, but she smiled at me.

"Low-key. Got it," I said, grinning a little stupidly.

"Okay, slim, how about I pick the restaurant though? I think I have more expertise at low-class dining." Ariadne said raising her eyebrows as she looked me up and down. I gave her a similar look right back.

"Really? Well I know more about eating out in Chicago than you," I responded with a slight joke in my voice. She crossed her arms and looked doubtful.

"I bet you only ate out at the places that charged four dollars for a glass of water," Ariadne scoffed. I smiled knowingly at her.

"Come on, just let me choose. I'll show you a great time," I promised, holding my hand out to her as an offer. She gave me a suspicious smile before taking it, and we walked out. I didn't realize that I forgot my phone until we were in the back of a cab, our arms intertwined. So I decided that for once, it could wait.

**A/N: Here we go, back on path with our canon characters! (I hope you like A/A!) Maybe you've figured out who's gone missing from the canon team :). I'm sorry it took so long, I was at a soccer tournament out of state for a few days and just got back to the internet. Hopefully they'll come out faster now. Please review! Any constructive criticism is welcome!**


	3. The Issue with Us

**"There will be times in life when impossibility is felt, but then there are dreams- and dreams allow us possibility." –Jeffery David Lang**

**Ariadne- Chicago, IL**

I woke up suddenly, with a rush in my head. I remembered only vaguely the bar that Arthur had brought me to. I remembered that I was impressed- I didn't think that a stiff like him would be up for such a grungy little place. But somehow, he knew the place well enough that he was able to order without even looking at the menu.

When I flipped over on my side, I withheld a yelp when I realized that I was in bed with Arthur. He was still asleep. Instinctively, I patted down my own body. I was relieved that I was still in my jeans and boots, although I realized that my shirt was on the floor and I was only wearing a bra. So maybe we _had_ gotten somewhere last night.

I pounded my head with my fists trying to remember everything that had happened. I had definitely had a few drinks at the bar, but I couldn't remember much past then. I sat up and saw that my totem was sitting on the table next to me. Funny, I usually kept it in my pants pocket unless… I… was… shit.

I looked back at the bed again- Arthur's silver case was sitting there, the IV leads strew across the bed, one towards him and one towards me. We had shared a dream while we were both absolutely wasted? I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to remember what that dream was all about.

But then Arthur rolled over onto his side and I heard him groan a little- a sure sign that he was waking up. I practically fell out of bed in a rush to get my shirt back on. I had a gut feeling that sober Arthur would react very differently to my shirtless-ness than drunk Arthur probably had.

"Holy shit! Ariadne!" I realized that I was way too late to save this moment. I turned around at a painfully slow rate, my arms through the holes in my shirt.

"Hi Arthur," I squeaked. He stared at me shamelessly for a moment before turning his head and staring off into space. He remained this way for almost a full moment before putting his head in his hands.

"Oh my God," he muttered. I couldn't decipher whether he was angry, embarrassed, or guilty-sounding. I pulled my shirt on fully, but kicked off my boots while I waited for an explanation. It never came.

"Arthur? Wha- What happened?" I asked hesitantly. He looked up at me slowly.

"You don't remember?" He asked. His voice was totally devoid of any emotion. He was looking at me, a dull shock registering in his expression.

"Do I want to?" I asked with a nervous laugh. He just kept looking at me. "Arthur? You're kind of freaking me out."

"I can't just _tell_ you what happened!" Arthur said. He looked thoroughly unhappy. My curiosity was piqued.

"What happened?" I demanded.

"No, oh my god, Ariadne, you… I can't just…" he sighed angrily at me and then grinded his knuckles into his eyes. He looked up at me miserably. "Just try to remember." He commanded. I sat down on the bed and closed my eyes, trying to recall the previous night's dream.

_Heat. Body on body. Grabbing his hair with her hands, him with his hands around her waist._

_ "Quick," Ariadne hissed. "Give me a kiss." And he did. But before she knew what was happening, he was inside her. His body was moving rhythmically with hers, and she could hear him moaning. There was more heat, and they repeated this again._

I screamed. It was not a well thought out reaction, and it was not in horror of what I had done. In fact, I have to say it was one of the best dreams I had ever had. No, I was just shocked that we had gone so far so fast. It was against everything that either of us stood for.

"Oh my god, Arthur, did we…" I faltered, but his face was still stony.

"Yes."

"In the dream last night…"

"Yep."

"Three times?"

"Oh yeah." Arthur almost smiled at this, but then quickly reverted to his more serious expression. I couldn't help but look down towards my pelvis.

"But it was a dream."

"Yes." Arthur was very rapt in answering that question. This was getting uncomfortable. Was I technically still a virgin when I did it _three times_ in one night in my head? I mean, physically, I was still pristine. But mentally, I was already gone. I had done it, known how it felt.

"Shit." I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. This was not going right for me at all. I looked back up at Arthur, whose face was an unreadable mixture of emotions. Neither of us said anything. But we both knew that we had crossed a line. Arthur's phone rang and we both dove at it, eager to distract ourselves from what had happened. Arthur grabbed it and put it on speaker.

"Cobb?" He asked.

"Arthur," Cobb confirmed. "Listen, we have a problem. The good news here is that the last anyone heard of Eames was that he was going for coffee with Darcy Gilligan two days ago. The bad news is, that's the last anyone heard of either of them. They've both gone missing." Arthur and I looked at each other, a dull sense of shock spreading over both of us.

"Do we have any idea where they are?" Arthur asked. His voice was completely collected.

"No one has any idea. But it was proposed that you two meet with Darcy's team to try and straighten this out." Cobb said. I could hear the discomfort in his voice. He wanted to be here with us. Arthur must have sensed it too because he smiled at the phone.

"Will you be joining us, Cobb?" He asked. "You know the Gilligans better than either of us." There was a pause on Cobb's end of the phone.

"No, I… I have to stay with the kids." He said finally. But there was resentment in his tone. Arthur nodded at me to signify that Cobb would be here.

"Then can we get the number to contact the other group?" Arthur requested. It was given to us and after a few short words, the call was ended. We looked at each other again. We had Eames to worry about now, but what we did last night was weighing heavy on our minds.

**Eames- Chicago, IL**

**2 days Earlier**

I recognized her immediately when she walked in. She had a strong presence and she carried herself with confidence despite her young appearance. She didn't have that maniacal gleam in her eye that Cobb did, either. It would be satisfying to have someone bloody sane in charge for once. She sat down at my table without ordering anything, without saying a word. She just looked me in the eye and waited for me to initiate the conversation. I did the same to her and smiled winningly. Her eyes were intense and blue, and strangely detached.

"Darcy?" I asked finally. Her lips upturned very quickly.

"Eames?" She responded. I recognized her voice from over the phone. It was mature, but overly so, almost cold.

"It's a pleasure," I said, extending a hand to shake hers. She shook my hand briefly before retracting it to dig through a backpack she had with her. She pulled out a folder and handed it to me.

"Inside you'll find the most basic information about my team and about this case. I've also included an estimated paycheck if you complete the job," Darcy said seriously. I raised an eyebrow and cracked a smile at her. She just looked back at me blankly, waiting for me to read the file. I dropped my smile and put on a more serious face as I opened the file, taking a sip of coffee. I nearly choked when I saw the paycheck estimate. Darcy looked concerned.

"Are you alright?" She asked, cocking her head to the side like a curious puppy.

"Bloody hell, are you sure this is the right figure you've got down on this piece of paper?" I asked, holding up the yellow post-it. She nodded, looking slightly amused.

"You'll find, Mr. Eames, that with my team, your pay will be substantially better than just about anywhere else." Darcy said, finally cracking a small smile. I decide to humor her.

"And why is that possible, Miss Darcy?" I tease. She suddenly became very serious again.

"Because I don't take any of the total accumulated paycheck." She said. I raised my eyebrows and leaned in towards her.

"And why is that, love?" I asked. To my surprise, she leaned in to.

"Because I don't need it," she said simply. I was about to ask why she didn't need _that much_ money when I saw someone watching us. He was in a booth by himself, a hood drawn over his head. I could make out his tan hands gripping a coffee cup but not much else. Darcy noticed I was staring immediately and followed my gaze. She must have recognized him, because she let loose a quiet stream of very unladylike words.

"Care to repeat that out loud, pet?" I asked her lightly. She took the folder back from me and crumpled it in her hands.

"Shut up and come with me if you want to keep your brain matter inside your head," she snapped at me. I raised my eyebrows but followed her out, instinctively shielding her from the guy in the hoodie. I saw him stand and follow us out. I turned back to Darcy and found her with a .22 caliber pistol in one hand. She didn't seem to really care that she was handling the gun, she was much too preoccupied with ripping up the paper in the folder.

I was both surprised and a little nauseated when she chose a few small strips of paper and shoved them into her mouth, swallowing them.

"Hell, Darcy, what the fuck was that?" I asked her in a hushed voice. She didn't answer, she just threw her backpack and the rest of the paper into a trashcan. I grabbed her shoulder and stopped her, ignoring the fact that the hoodie guy was advancing on us.

"Eames, we really don't have time for this," she begged. I didn't let go of her shoulder.

"You want me to work for you? And you won't tell me bloody anything?" I asked. She sighed and gave a quick look towards the guy advancing towards us.

"Listen, I know this guy. His name is-." She was cut off as something lodged itself in the side of her neck. She seized momentarily before falling limp on the sidewalk, her gun clattering uselessly beside her. I hardly had time to look up before I felt something sting my bicep and I involuntarily submitted to darkness.

**A/N: Although it's a shorter chapter, a lot was going on, especially for you A/A lovers! Anyways, review are always appreciated and they certainly help me get the chapters out faster! Thanks for reading!**


	4. Our Demons

"**There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.****" –Douglas H. Everett**

**Cobb- Los Angeles, CA/ Chicago, IL**

I knew by the tone of his voice that Arthur suspected me. He knew me too well. He probably knew that, as I was speaking to them, I was packing up my travel bag and briefcase. He probably told Ariadne. It was more likely that Ariadne was able to tell that I was on my way too. I mean, neither of them sounded surprised when I arrived in Chicago at the airport and asked for them to come pick me up before the rendezvous.

Arthur arrived in a modest silver Honda Civic and when they saw me, they pulled up to the curb and Ariadne moved dutifully to the back seat. As I got into the front seat, I turned to Arthur who looked at me a little balefully.

"What?" I asked, my face red. "I left James and Phillipa with Miles and told them that I'd be gone a week, tops."

"When we called, we didn't reach Sean Gilligan," Arthur said a little irritably. "We reached Nathan Gilligan, his nephew."

"Yes, I know," I said a little guiltily. "And?"

"We're meeting them in half an hour downtown." Ariadne piped up from the back seat. "Nathan that is, and their point man, Jason Reynolds." I nodded at this, completely unperturbed.

"Well you didn't think that I'd set up a call with the _real Sean Gilligan_ for you, did you?" I asked, surprised. "That's ridiculous. I got the number of her cousin, her architect, and that's who I sent you to. There's no need for you to be talking to Sean." Arthur was visibly unhappy with this, but didn't protest. We were silent the rest of the way to the meeting spot, a neutral and reasonably private parking garage downtown.

Nathan and Jason were waiting for us in a dark blue Denali, and they got out of the car hesitantly only after Arthur, Ariadne, and I had.

"Arthur?" The smaller of the two men spoke up. It was probably Nathan, I could see the Gilligan family resemblance in his face- light blue eyes, thin lips and a small pointed nose. The other man beside him was probably Jason. He was younger, a strong, tall man with dark brown hair and eyes so dark that they looked black. He was definitely not family- his nose was more prominent and his build was muscular as opposed to Nathan's willowy stature.

"Nathan?" Arthur replied, I noticed how Arthur oh-so-subtly shifted his stance so he was standing in front of Ariadne, protecting her. I pretended not to notice.

"Yes sir. I am to understand that we are going to collaborate to find our missing team members?" Nathan asked.

"That's the plan," Arthur said stiffly.

"That's all good and well, but _how_ do we find them?" Jason interjected from where he stood, hunched next to Nathan. Arthur seemed stuck on this point, as did Nathan.

"We could go back to that bakery where you last saw Darcy," Ariadne suggested. Jason nodded, a ghostly smile on his lips. "Someone might have seen something."

"That's a good idea," he complimented Ariadne. She smiled back at him and I saw Arthur's face contort furiously for a moment as he saw the flicker in Jason's eye. Then his face was smooth again, although he was clearly wrestling back the urge to punch Jason in the mouth.

"Can you give us directions?" I asked Nathan, seeing as Arthur was a bit preoccupied with his emotions. Nathan obliged before retreating to his Denali with Jason in tow.

"Get there as fast as you can, alright? The longer we're apart from them, only more can be happening to them." Nathan said. It seemed that he and I were the only ones left focusing on Dar and Eames anymore.

"Alright, I'll see you there," I responded, forcing Arthur into the passenger seat of the car before getting into the driver's seat.

"You need to get a hold of yourself, Arthur," I muttered.

"I don't trust that Jason kid, not at all," Arthur whispered right back. Once Ariadne had sidled into the backseat, we shot off towards the bakery, the entire car silent again.

The bakery was a chain-brand and it looked like every other Corner Bakery across the country with modern lighting and comfortable booths at the window. It was boring. Run of the mill. Yet at the same time, inauspicious. We pulled up only seconds after Nathan, and Arthur leapt out of the car as soon as we arrived, shepherding Ariadne up towards Nathan and away from Jason, who hung back with me.

"Dom Cobb." Jason said, looking at me, his expression unreadable. "You know, Darcy quite resents you for performing Inception. She was under the impression that you were going to leave that to her." I remembered our deal.

_"And you promise, Mr. Dom, that you won't do Inception? Because I want to be special. I want to do Inception all by myself." Little Darcy said sternly. She was ten years old, two years into her training, and extremely adept at shared dreaming. Her father was standing in the background, watching me as I regarded the child with interest. I was only twenty-three, fresh out of college and I already thought of myself as a mature adult. But here I was making deals with a child._

_ "Sure thing, Dar. Inception is all yours." I said with a gentle ease. This seemed to please Sean and he nodded at me. Darcy smiled, standing up straighter._

_ "Good, Mr. Dom. You can do extraction, if you want." Darcy said generously._

_ "That's very nice of you, Dar, I'll do just that."_

"We had a bit of an agreement, but it was a long time ago, at least eight years ago," I said, shrugging it off. Leave it to Dar to remember a tiny little conversation like that.

"Well it seems that it was important enough to her, Mr. Cobb." Jason said, pulling out a manila folder. "She's been researching you, and judging by the extent of her work, she was planning to perform Inception on _you_ because of this agreement. She had this in the file." He handed me a sheet of purple construction paper. It was faded, but very familiar. I knew what it would say before I looked at it. In the messy scrawl of a ten-year-old, it read:

"_Mr. Dom Cobbs will not perform Inception because he promised Dar Gilligan that he would not ever do it. If he ever does it, he will not do it right, and he will fail, and I will get him. Mr. Dom will sign this paper and then it will be a contract."_

Underneath it was my signature, in green Crayola marker.

**Darcy- Whereabouts Unknown**

I don't falter in decisions and I don't crack under pressure. I'm a well-oiled machine, my father made sure of that. But when I woke up in that cell, everything I had once been crumbled. I was a weak, scared little girl who had no idea where she was.

I was in a small, damp cell made entirely of concrete, besides a metal door which was shut tight. There was only one florescent light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and its light didn't reach every corner of the damp cell. I realized that my wrists were bound behind my back and I was sitting in uncomfortably close proximity with the forger named Eames. In fact, he was kind of lying on top of me. He was heavy and both of my legs had fallen asleep, so I kicked a little weakly. He murmured something but didn't wake from his comatose state.

"Eames," I said. I found my voice coming out hoarse and raspy. I had no idea why. "Eames, wake up," I said a little louder.

"Whasamatter?" Eames sat upright, causing pins and needles to shoot through my legs. I gasped a little, simultaneously reprimanding myself in my head. Was I suddenly so weak that I had to voice every little discomfort I experienced?

"Eames, Eames, what happened?" I asked, shaking out my legs a little. It was hard to do because I could now see that I was bound at the knees and again at the ankles. Eames, who was only restrained at the wrists, watched me dully without answering. I kicked a little more violently, coming in contact with Eames' knee.

"Mother fu-"

"Focus Eames." I cut him off smoothly, trying to regain some of my old persona. "What happened?" He looked at me a little angrily, then squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to remember.

"We left the bakery," he began. I rolled my eyes in spite of my better judgment, but remained silent. "That man, wearing the sweatshirt with the hood, he followed us out. He sh- shot you. In the neck with something." Eames looked up at me, trying to see the gaping bullet hole. When he couldn't, he shifted so his bound hands were out in front of him.

Casually, he moved me from where I was slumped against the wall and with gentle fingers and keen eyes, he began to search my neck for some sort of mark. I instinctively leaned away at his touch, but his hands kept my neck firmly in place with a gentle hold.

"There's a little bite here. More like a needle entry spot or a dart rather than any sort of bullet." Eames said insightfully, brushing some of my hair off of the side of my neck that he was examining. I watched his expression carefully. It was well guarded.

"Do you think we're dreaming?" I asked him. He met my gaze, his grey eyes searching mine.

"Well why don't you tell me, love? Because I hear you're quite the expert." He was challenging me. He already knew that we weren't dreaming.

"We are not. Our abductor wouldn't have been able to tie us up like this in a dream- he wouldn't have the time." I said. Eames smiled a little.

"Very good, Darcy." Eames said. "So how's about we work on getting these ropes off, yeah?"

"Yeah," I agreed. I rolled onto my side and worked on shimmying my arms around me so they were out in front of me. Meanwhile, Eames was looking for something we could use to cut the ropes. I watched him scour every inch of our ten-by-ten cell but found nothing to cut the binding.

"What now?" He asked me angrily. I could tell he was frustrated, probably with me because our meeting got us into this mess.

"Here, give me yours," I instructed him. He flopped down next to me and put his hands on my lap. Slowly, painfully, I began to untie the knot in the rope that held him. He watched my hands in a sullen silence.

After a while (I had no sense of time in that place) the ropes were loose enough that he could pull them off his wrists, which were raw and red from the rope burn. He rubbed them slowly and gingerly for a moment, then stretched his arms to get the feeling back in them.

"Your turn, m'love." Eames said. He went to work on my wrists first, his big fingers handling the knot with delicate care. It took a little less time for him to undo the knot but when he did, we still had my legs to untie. He did my ankles and I did my knees in a matter of minutes. After that, we just sat there, looking around at our bleak surroundings.

"What now?" Eames asked me. I looked around, rubbing my sore wrists. And again, I was out of my comfort zone. I was never the prey, always the predator. I never had to defend myself because no one had ever thought to rebel against me before.

"I don't know, Eames." I said. My voice was fearful- that was a first. Eames seemed to sense it too, because he calmed down a little to compensate for me losing my nerve.

"Alright, it's alright Darcy, we'll figure something out." Eames assured me, putting one arm around my shoulders. Normally I wouldn't have liked to be in such close proximity with someone I barely knew, but his presence was comforting, protecting. His grip around me only tightened when the metal door swung open. That same man from the bakery walked in with the same hoodie, hood drawn over his head. His face was in shadow, and I couldn't quite see it, but I had a pretty good guess at who it was.

"Look at you two," he sneered. "It would appear that you've gotten out of your bindings and found your way into each other's arms." I expected Eames to retract his arm but his hold just got stronger and he shifted to a position where he was more in front of me. This seemed to surprise the creep too. He pulled out a familiar silver case from outside the cell, then a gun from the back of his pants. He cocked the gun and pointed it at my head, making Eames stiffen.

"Now, you both know what's in this case. You both know how this works. You," he flicked the gun a little at me. "You're going to be the dreamer. Mr. Eames, I expect you to remain docile in this dream. I don't want any of my subconscious to suddenly suspect Miss Gilligan, here." Eames nodded almost imperceptibly.

Eames didn't let go of me as the creep prepared the leads for us to enter the dream. He didn't let go as the creep slid the needles under the skin in our wrists. He didn't let go as we leaned back against a corner of the cell, even though I was practically in his lap. And so I slipped into the world of dreams feeling safe and warm, despite the dire situation.

**A/N: So there's another chapter out! I'd like to thank you all for the overwhelmingly positive response to my last chapter, the reviews are great, and I can't even begin to tell you how much they help me get chapters out faster. Please review with comments, criticisms, suggestions- anything! Thanks for reading!**


	5. Our Rules

"**Dreaming men are haunted men." –Stephen Vincent Benet**

**Nathan- Chicago, IL**

We were all exhausted. There was really no reason for it, but I suppose that we were all just really worried. Once Jason stopped ogling at Ariadne, he was able to focus on our surroundings. Jason, Arthur and Cobb got a table in the bakery while Ariadne and I went up to casually question the young man behind the cash register under the cover that we were ordering some coffee. The young man whose nametag exclaimed "Toby", had no idea, as he hadn't been at work the previous day. I thanked him just the same.

We returned to the table with our coffees and everyone sat absolutely silent, absolutely motionless. Everyone was clearly distracted, but I couldn't help but notice Arthur and Ariadne. Arthur had made sure that they were going to sit next to each other. They seemed like they wanted to stay close, but every time they came in contact with each other, they flinched, like it burned to touch each other.

Then my phone rang. I looked down at the caller ID. "Darcy." Suddenly, everyone was huddled around the phone. I put it on speaker.

"Darcy, where are you?" I asked. I was hopeful that it would be her on the other end. My hopes were shattered.

"Darcy's not available right now. She and Eames are actually dreaming quite comfortably right now." The man on the other end of the phone said.

"How the hell could anyone abduct Eames?" Arthur whispered, clearly a little afraid of this man's power already.

"I've heard that if I use a strong enough sedative, then kill them while they're under, I can send the two of them to limbo. I've heard that if I do that, they might go crazy." The man on the line taunted. "And wouldn't it be a shame to lose one of the only forgers in the world, along with the sole heir to the Gilligan fortune." My hands balled up into fists and I saw Cobb's do the same.

"Here's my ultimatum. Come to the warehouse at 491 Washington Street. It's in the Industrial outskirts of town. With you, you must bring five million dollars in cash." The voice demanded. I decided that it would be best that I didn't point out how many bags of cash that would be. Whoever this was, they weren't thinking this through very well.

"Be there by no later than six o'clock tonight, or I'll drop them into limbo. Come without the money, and I'll drop them into limbo. Contact the authorities and I'll… well, you get the idea. I expect to see you soon." Then the line went dead and we all slumped back into our seats, Ariadne leaning into Arthur's shoulder. For once, neither moved away from the other.

"We can get the money from Sean, this is perfect," Jason said, looking at me to back him up. "Right?" He asked. I looked at Cobb and knew in an instant that we both knew what the other was thinking.

"I don't think that Sean can do much in this case." Cobb said quietly. Ariadne, Arthur, and Jason all looked surprised.

"He's like… a billionaire," Ariadne said. "What's five million dollars if it's to protect his daughter?" Cobb and I met each other's gazes again.

"Mr. Gilligan is not quite right in the head anymore, Ariadne," Cobb supplied. I clenched my jaw at the berating statement about my uncle. But it was true.

"He underwent a traumatic dreaming event about six years ago, and he hasn't been the same ever since. Since then, _I've_ been Darcy's legally appointed guardian because her mother's been gone for years as well. Actually, physically gone, that is," I explained. "In fact, he's been inexplicably hostile towards Darcy ever since the incident. I don't think he'll pay for their release." I said, a little angrily. Uncle Sean was infuriating.

"So then we get to take this guy out our way?" Arthur asked. "Dream style?"

"I'll run point," Jason offered. Arthur looked at Jason as if he'd just beaten him over the head with a wooden mallet.

"I'm point man," Arthur said, almost angrily.

"Architect," Ariadne claimed. I shook my head at her.

"I'm the architect here, young lady," I corrected here. We all looked at Cobb.

"Well I suppose that since I'm the only thief here, that role goes to me. Although, I think this is going to have to be more of an inception job." I looked pointedly at Ariadne, silently staking my claim and she mirrored my look. Arthur and Jason both looked like they were trying to shoot lasers out of their eyes at each other.

I could tell that this temporary truce was going to cause some big problems.

**Eames- First Level, Dream State**

I opened my eyes and found myself on my back in a tangled jungle. Darcy was nowhere in sight, and neither was the guy who abducted us. I got to my feet quickly and spun around, looking for her.

"Darcy!" I yelled. I hadn't liked the way that our unknown man had been advancing on her, and I certainly hadn't liked the way he'd put the gun to her head. I started running in one direction when I thought I heard a noise.

"Darcy!" I yelled again. Very faintly in the distance, I heard a shout in response. It was coming from my left, so I immediately veered towards the noise.

"Eames?" It was Darcy, definitely Darcy. I broke into a run towards the sound of her voice.

"Dar?" I called again.

"Eames! Up here," I looked up and Darcy was poised up on a branch of a baobab tree. I don't know if you've ever seen a baobab, but it's this massive tree with a huge, wide trunk and big thick branches. It's pretty hard to climb and I wondered how Darcy had gotten up there in the first place, she was at least fifteen feet up, and she was on the lowest branch. She seemed to sense my confusion.

"I woke up here," she said, a small nervous smile on her lips. "I haven't gotten up the nerve to climb down." I smiled, a little relieved that this was the biggest of her worries.

"Well, love, it seems that the best way down would be to jump," I said, pretending analyze her situation very seriously. She laughed a little at this, then her face got serious.

"Really?" She asked a little apprehensively.

"Oh calm down, I'm right here. I won't let you land on your head or anything." I said. I shielded my eyes and looked up at her. She seemed to be considering.

"Alright," She said finally. She scooted over to an area where she could have a clear jump. "I'm going to jump," She informed me nervously, giving me the chance to stop her.

"I'm watching, sweetheart," I said, crossing my arms over my chest and smiling up cockily. She closed her eyes and leaned forwards. "No, no, open your eyes, Darcy," I instructed quickly. She jumped anyways. She landed on her hands and feet and rolled forwards in a somersault, ending up flat on her back. She cracked open her eyes and looked at me.

"I made it," she informed me.

"Maybe next time we'll keep our eyes open, yeah?" I suggested, laughing a bit. But I was serious. She rolled onto her hands and knees and I offered her a hand up. She took it and dusted herself off. Then she turned to survey the landscape her mind had conjured. Our hands never released their hold on each other.

I looked around too. We were on the very edge of the jungle now, there was a vast grassland stretching out beyond the foliage. The sky was a weird combination of nighttime and sunset- every horizon was painted with the pinks and oranges of a sunset, but then transitioned violently to dark blue when it got to the sky above. There was a smear of stars spread across the sky and a thin crescent moon. I looked at Darcy, impressed.

"This is nice." I told her simply. "But how do you keep someone within the limits of your dream with such openness? Wouldn't the target realize that they were in a dream right away if they hit a border?" I asked. This was one of Cobb's rules that he actually kept to, so I was surprised that it was the only rule that she broke.

"I've been doing this for as long as Mr. Dom, if not longer, and I specialize in big dreams. This dream is maybe ten square miles." Darcy said. Her tone implied that this was very run-of-the-mill. "It's harder to maintain, yes, but it's definitely worth the effort. Do you like the sky?"

"It's beautiful," I said honestly. "And why not have a beautiful horizon? I mean, where better a place to be while being held captive by a psychopath?" My tone got a little harder and I looked around us anxiously.

"About that…" Darcy started uneasily. She was wringing her hands and her expression was slightly pained.

"What?" I asked suspiciously. She bit her lip and looked up at me. If I wasn't so on-edge, I would've found her expression absolutely adorable.

"I think I know who our psycho is." She said, her voice quieter.

"Who is it?" I asked, stepping towards her quickly. She flinched a little before meeting my eyes.

"A man I used to train with. He disappeared off the map three years ago, and most speculated that he died. Even my father's sources were unable to find him. But I knew. If he'd died, there would be a body. The man who took us is named Raj Patel and he truly is crazy. That's why my father stopped training him. He was crazy enough that he wanted to experiment with limbo, using human test subjects." Darcy said this all very fast, as if she had memorized it from a script. Then she looked up at me, breathing shallowly.

"Dar, what did this man do? Why you so afraid?" I asked her. It was unusual for me to poke into someone's business like this, but I was keen to learn more about our kidnapper.

"He sent my father to limbo once in a coup at the lab. For one minute of real time. My father came back, and almost a year had passed in his head. Not to mention, he was going crazy from it all. I don't know what happens in limbo, Eames. I don't want to know. Because limbo changed the man that my father was into…" she shuddered. "He wasn't the same, especially after I told him why he went into limbo. He told Cobb and Raj to never come back, that their lessons were over. He told me to assemble a team, because I was going into the field. I was twelve." She looked saddened by this fact, if not frightened by our situation.

"It's alright, darling, it's alright." I assured her, squeezing her hand with my own. "I won't let this Raj kid get to you." To my surprise, my words of assurance seemed to calm her considerably. She nodded slowly, taking in a deep breath.

"I trust you, Eames," she said, catching my gaze and holding it.

"Touching, really," the man with the hoodie was back, his hood thrown down.

"Raj," Darcy said. She didn't sound angry, but scared.

"Hello there, little thief," Raj responded. His voice was cool and collected. He didn't sound surprised that she knew who he was. "You two get to spend a couple of days down here while I wait for your ransom to come from up above," Raj said dismissively.

"Don't lie to us. You're not going to let us go, will you Raj?" Darcy said. He voice was still unstable, afraid.

"You remember the incident from years back? I'm going to get you for telling your father, Darcy. In fact, everyone you know, every competition I've ever had will suffer because of what you did. Enjoy your time in this dream life, little thief, because you and your forger are going to spend a lifetime in Limbo."

**A/N: I apologize for making the entire end of that chapter so dense, but I really needed to set stuff up in this chapter, kind of give a back-story as well as set up the ultimatum. The action will really start to kick in during the next few chapters, so bear with me! Again, thank you so much for reading, and please review to tell me your thoughts!**


	6. If We Can't Work Together

"**Dreams are necessary to life." –Anais Nin**

**Arthur- Gilligan Penthouse, Chicago , IL**

Ariadne and I stood in close proximity, but neither of us said anything. I can't speak for what she was thinking, but my mind was still on what had happened between us the night before, and the looks that she and Jason had been exchanging. Nathan was putting in a good word with the manager at the desk, trying to convince him that he was family with Sean. By popular vote, we had decided that it was in our best interest to try and convince Sean to cough up a ransom for us, despite the fact that Nathan and Cobb were the two who voted against it.

Ariadne, I noticed, was watching Jason as he sat inconspicuously on a bench across the lobby. She was biting her lower lip and I might have seen a slight smile emerge on her face, but it could have been my imagination, either way, I wasn't happy. When I saw him smile back at her, I decided that enough was enough. I scooted closer to Ariadne and nudged her with my foot. She looked at me suddenly, abashed. Yeah, I thought, she better be embarrassed. She was basically having eye-sex with Jason.

"We need to talk," I whispered to her. She turned so she was facing me completely.

"About last…"

"About that dream we had," I confirmed. She bit her lip again. I hated playing this card, but I at least wanted to sort this out before she got physical with Jason.

"Arthur, not now…" Ariadne said firmly.

"If not now, then when?" I said, my tone matching hers. But we were interrupted. I think Ariadne was relieved.

"They're letting us up." Nathan said a little stiffly. I don't think that he liked the hassle of everything, especially since he was related to Sean. The manager in the lobby followed us to the elevator and scanned a key-card that would allow us to enter the penthouse. He gave Nathan a nod and the elevator doors slid shut. We all leaned back against the walls of the elevator, an awkward silence passing over us. Nathan broke the silence by clearing his throat.

"Alright, guys. Sean is in a pretty sensitive at this point. You probably shouldn't talk at all unless he speaks to you first," Nathan said carefully. "Just let me speak to him." For once, we all nodded, we all listened. We had two hours to deliver the ransom to keep Eames and Darcy out of limbo. It was funny, I was finding that I needed to be reminded of the gravity of Eames' situation because Ariadne was so much on my mind.

When we emerged from the elevator, we were immediately met by a man nearly identical to Nathan. He was older, with salt-and-pepper hair and a few more wrinkles on his face, but he was essentially the same as Nathan in appearance. Nathan greeted the man with a handshake and a grim expression. He turned to the rest of us.

"Everybody, I'd like you to meet my father, Jerry," Nathan said stiffly. "He's Sean's younger brother." We all nodded and waved collectively.

"And I'm to understand that all of you are in the… subconscious business?" Jerry said. He looked a little uncomfortable about it.

"Yes, we are," Cobb said, answering for the group. Jerry nodded, clearly finished with the small-talk.

"I'll take you all to Sean," Jerry said cautiously. Nathan nodded to him and there must have been some communication going on between them, because they didn't say anything, but a look of understanding passed between them.

We passed through some upscale rooms with decorations that were probably worth more than my whole apartment in Seattle. We came up to an ornate emerald green door with white carvings and a white Pegasus. I looked at Nathan curiously, but he wasn't paying attention to me.

"It's from the Gilligan family crest," Jerry supplied helpfully. I gave him a nod as thanks. Jerry opened the door for us, but didn't enter. He just bowed his head and let us pass through. The room we entered looked like a science lab, complete with test tubes and whirring machines. Ariadne looked just as amazed as I did. I had been expecting an invalid lying in bed, not a working scientist.

"What the _hell_ are all of you doing in my laboratory?" A tall, ghostly looking man demanded this of us. Nathan stepped up to him, his palms up in a sign of submission.

"Sean, it's me, your nephew, Nathan," he said. At first I thought his calmness was a façade meant to merely settle our nerves, but then I realized how truly comfortable Nathan was with this man. I examined Sean. He was tall and gaunt, his cheekbones hollowed-out. His eyes were the same unnerving blue that Nathan's were, his hair the same salt-and-pepper as Jerry's, and his face was riddled with wrinkles. Perhaps his one physically redeeming attribute was his hands. They were thin and long, like the rest of him, but they were elegant like a pianist's, not gnarled and knotted like I had expected.

"Fuck off, Nate, I have _work_ to do," Sean said. He movements were jerky and his voice unnecessarily loud. I found myself to be a bit afraid of him.

"We need to talk to you about Darcy, Uncle Sean," Nathan said calmly. Sean's spastic movements only became more violent.

"Don't _talk _to be about my daughter, Nate," Sean said angrily.

"She's in trouble, Sean. She and another good man, they're in trouble. They've been kidnapped and they need a ransom paid," Nathan said, his voice methodical. Sean grabbed a clipboard and began flipping through the papers, biting his lip as if he hadn't heard.

"Mr. Gilligan," Cobb said quietly. Nathan looked at Cobb like he was crazy, but it got Sean to look up. He looked at Cobb with wide, maniacal eyes.

"You." He said. "Who the fuck let you in?" His voice was filled with loathing. Cobb didn't look surprised, but he looked disappointed. He backed up a little until he was behind Jason again, where he had started. Sean followed him with bloodshot eyes, but didn't say anything to him. He turned to Nathan.

"I don't give a damn about what happened to Darcy," he said to Nathan. Nathan bowed his head, but Ariadne and I shared an incredulous look. What father didn't give a shit about his daughter?

"I'm sorry to have bothered you, Uncle Se-."

"Get out, and bring the rest of those damned dreamers with you," Sean interrupted his nephew harshly. Nathan ushered us out quickly. Jerry closed the door behind us.

"I told you all that this whole thing was a waste of time," Nathan told us. He was clearly unhappy that we had gotten such a clear view into his personal life without making any progress towards helping Darcy. We were about to leave, when Jerry interrupted us.

"I have enough saved up, Nathan. I have an account with about four-point three million saved up, mostly stock profit from Sean's company." Jerry said. His face was pale. He'd heard his son talking, and he was actually concerned for his niece's well-being. Nathan looked between all of us, then back at his father. He nodded, then they withdrew and began discussing with each other. I turned to look at Ariadne, but saw that she had already shifted towards Jason.

"It's been a while," she said to him, a smile on her lips. He grinned back at her. It made me want to vomit.

**Darcy- First Level, Dream State**

Raj must have used a timed kick because only seconds after he delivered his dramatic monologue to us, he disappeared. Eames looked at me, a slightly worried look in his eyes.

"That man there- he's barking mad, thinking he can send us to Limbo," Eames said, running his fingers through his hair. I quickly released Eames' hand and started digging through my pockets in a fury. Eames realized what I was doing in an instant, but he looked at me like I was crazy.

"My totem- my totem isn't there," I said, my voice panicky. I checked my pockets again. How could I have not noticed that it was missing?

"Calm down, darling, we know that we're dreaming. He told us we were," Eames said, his voice methodical. He was being much to calm for my liking.

"Why the _hell_ would I calm down, Eames? Hmm? I don't have my totem!" I felt tears prickling at my eyes. I immediately wiped at them away. I hadn't cried in years, so of course I had to cry in front of Eames.

"Calm down, it's a bloody trinket. I'm here, and you're here. We can keep a hold on reality for each other, yeah?" Eames said, taking my shoulders firmly. I decided that I would not be consoled so easily. I pulled away from him roughly, much to his surprise.

"No, no. I need it, I_ need_ it." I said. How could I explain this to him? I'd had that watch on my person for ten years straight. Now it was gone. My one shred of reality, my constant, the only thing that stayed consistent with me- it was gone.

"Jesus Christ, calm down Darcy! You're dreaming, I promise you, you're dreaming," Eames said. He was losing his cool as well. We couldn't afford for two of us to be going crazy, but I couldn't exactly get a grip on myself. I cried wordlessly. I gripped my head between my hands. I had to calm down.

"You don't know Eames, you don't know what this means!" I screamed. Eames looked a little confused for a moment, trying to match his assurances to my jarred response.

"Then enlighten me, darling! Help me understand!" He said. His voice was escalating in volume and pitch.

"I can't explain," I said looking up at him miserably. He looked pissed.

"I don't get you! What the bloody hell is wrong with you? I mean, are you even listening to what you're saying? It's bloody gibberish!" He yelled at me.

"I just need my totem, okay Eames? I need a grip on what's real, because your word isn't good enough, people can lie to you, they can say things that aren't true," I said angrily.

"You know, a totem's just supposed to help you keep a grip on reality, but you're using it to keep yourself sane!" Eames yelled.

"I'm not crazy!" I said shrilly. He laughed mirthlessly.

"You're crazier than Cobb," he said his voice suddenly low.

"Shut up!" I said, angry that I couldn't formulate a better response.

"Piss off!" He instructed me furiously. So I did the only thing I could think of. I turned and started running in the opposite direction. And I made it rain.

I was sobbing harder than I ever had, and in my confusion, I didn't realize where I was going. I didn't realize that I was headed towards the small African-style village that my mind had drawn up. It was where Eames' subconscious was residing. It didn't even occur to me that they'd recognize me as the dreamer straight away. So when they attacked me, I was totally unprepared.

I was approached by a single boy, a young man holding a spear with red and white paint decorating his face. For a moment we just stared at each other. Then, in one swift movement, he plunged the spear into the left side of my chest. I screamed as loud as I could, but soon the one attacker was not alone, and I was overcome.

**A/N: Sorry it took me a bit longer to get this one out, there was a lot of writing, and re-writing of this chapter, but hopefully, the next chapter will be out soon! Please review with your thoughts and reactions!**


	7. We Die Alone

"**All the things that one has forgotten scream for help in dreams." **–**Elias Canetti**

**Ariadne- Just Outside the Warehouse on Washington St.**

Arthur, Cobb and I were back in the Honda Civic, trailing Jason and Nathan. Arthur was sitting in the back with me. He wasn't saying anything, but he looked angry. I had to figure that it was Jason.

"Arthur?" I asked. I kept my voice low. Cobb might have been able to hear us, but he turned up the radio to give us what privacy he could. He finally looked at me. He didn't look angry, as I had expected. He looked miserable.

"Ari, what the hell's up with you and Jason?" He said. I realized what he must have thought.

"Oh my god, Arthur- no. No, no, no." I laughed at the idea of me and Jason. Arthur looked shocked.

"Wait- what?" He asked. There was some tentative relief in his expression.

"Oh my God, Arthur? I used to know Jason. We went to high school together. It's just… It's been crazy seeing him now… like this." I laughed. Jason had been my best friend's little brother. Arthur froze for a moment before laughing in relief. When he finished, he was smilling broadly.

"Was there ever anything going on-."

"Eww, Arthur, no way. Jason was like the little brother I never had when I was in high school. That never happened," I assured him. Then I added, "Nor will it ever happen." He sighed in relief and flopped backwards in the seat.

"Thank God," he said, smiling at me. I rolled my eyes.

"Did you honestly think that I'd be looking at anyone else? After what happened with us?" I asked. But it was an honest question.

"I hoped not," Arthur said. He gave me this look. I had sudden déjà vu from our dream. He had been looking at me like that all night.

"Because, honestly, I'm not really sorry that it happened." I said this without really thinking about what I was saying, but after I said it, I wondered if it was out of line. I might have seen Cobb flinch, his head slightly inclined towards us now. He was listening. Arthur didn't really seem to notice.

"Really?" He asked. He looked at me a little uncertainly. "Because I'm not really sorry either." We looked at each other and Arthur took initiative. He leaned in and kissed me, a little more fiercely than I had expected. But it was in no means unpleasant. We only pulled apart when we Cobb stopped the car outside a big brick building. It looked like a factory.

"Come on kids," Cobb said, a little tiredly. He clearly hadn't missed a thing in the rear-view mirror. I felt myself blush, but Arthur looked unabashed. We exited and watched as Jason and Nathan got out of the other car. Arthur was clearly seeing Jason in a new light- like maybe the kid wasn't the spawn of Satan.

"We're here, seven minutes to spare," Nathan said. He had several duffel bags stuffed with cash. Jason took some of them off his hands, and then in turn, Arthur took a couple of them off of Jason's hands. Jason didn't look surprised. He probably figured that I'd filled in Arthur about our pre-existing relationship.

"Well let's go. We need to get them out of there," Cobb said. He looked anxious- more so than the rest of us. He led the group as we lifted up the garage-style door and walked in. It was empty, dusty, and dark. Cobb strode in quickly.

"Hello?" He called. He turned to face us. "There's no one here." There was a hissing noise, and then he fell motionless on the ground.

"Shit!" Nathan yelled. Arthur pushed me to the ground and covered me with his own body, but then I felt him go limp on top of me. I screamed, unable to run or hide. There was a sudden sting in my side, just above my hip. Then, I felt myself succumbing to an overwhelming sleepiness.

**Eames- First Level, Dream State**

I swore to myself that I wouldn't let myself go near that crazy bitch again. Once it started raining, I reminded myself to ensure her financial downfall once we escaped this dream. I started to walk in the opposite direction, to get as far away from her as I could. And then I heard her scream, and the rain stopped.

It wasn't the angry type of screaming, she wasn't just proclaiming to the world how pissed off she was. She sounded scared. She sounded hurt. So I turned back around, and ran towards the sound of her voice. My heart rate escalated when her screams cut off suddenly. I could only pray that she hadn't gone down to limbo.

As I broke through the brush into another clearing, I saw my subconscious in a huddle in the form of primitive chocolate-brown natives, probably Darcy's impression of what Africans would look like. I only assumed that they were converging on the thief.

"Hey, get off!" I yelled at my subconscious. Of course, they didn't listen, so I pushed them aside roughly. I only stepped back when one grown man jabbed a spear at me, squawking at me in a foreign language. I pretended be scared off, backing up two steps. When he turned around, I grabbed his spear out of his hand and pushed my way through the crowd.

Darcy was on her back on the ground, the shaft of a spear protruding from her chest, a long gash across her forehead. Both were bleeding profusely. She looked at me, but her eyes were glazed over.

"Eames?" She asked, her voice wet and raspy. Immediately I swung the spear around, scaring my subconscious into backing up.

"Darcy, what have you gone and done?" I muttered. My voice wasn't calm anymore, it wasn't reassuring. But honestly, when I saw the blood running between her fingers as she put a hand over her chest wound, I couldn't quite keep my composure. It had taken her maybe thirty seconds alone for my subconscious to detect her and attack.

I took another swipe at the natives to warn them to stay back before bending down. I heaved Darcy up over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. She coughed and cried out when I did this. I shushed her, trying to calm her down.

"Darcy, darling, you're going to be alright, you hear me?" I said. I tried to fight the rising panic as I found that her blood was staining my shirt. I kept swinging the spear around like a madman, and eventually, fought through the hoards of my subconscious. I hardly noticed when one brave projection took a swipe and slashed my tricep. All that mattered was that the breath kept going in and out of Darcy's chest, that her heart continued beating.

I didn't stop when I emerged on the other side of the forest. I found the baobab that we had been at the whole time, and laid her down so she was propped up against the trunk of the tree. She was pale and she had a faraway look in her eye. Somehow I knew that she had retreated to some recess of her mind to avoid the pain. But then her face became intensely lucid.

"Eames… Oh my god, Eames, I'm sorry, you're… you're bleeding!" She gasped. She acted like there wasn't a gaping wound in her own shoulder.

"No, no Dar, don't you worry about me," I scolded her gently. She nodded and her eyes rolled back in her head for a moment as she tried to get a handle on the pain.

"But you're hurt," she said, her breathing ragged.

"It's not really so bad," I assured her, examining the gash on the back of my arm. "Just a scratch." She sat back and swallowed hard, closing her eyes momentarily. While she tried to calm herself, I pulled her shirt down so I could properly see the wound on her left shoulder. It looked deep, and the skin around the wound was purple and green.

"You know, your subconscious… is kind of a bitch," Darcy said, looking up at me, a weak smile on her lips. God dammit. She was trying to lift _my_ morale.

"I'm sure yours is a real bastard, can't wait to meet it," I countered, trying to keep things light. She laughed, but it sounded more like a wheeze. I took off my jacket and held it desperately to her shoulder, glancing between her wound and her eyes. She was watching me, her eyes strangely disconnected, like the first time we met.

"I lied, Eames." She said. Her voice was hollow, her face expressionless. I shifted my jacket on the wound in her chest.

"That's alright, Darcy, it's okay," I said, my tone lax. She looked at me, her face blank.

"No, it's not. I lied… and I had no right. Raj… he had a right to be angry. We framed him," Darcy said, her pale eyes searching my face for a reaction. I didn't say anything. So she swallowed and continued.

"Cobb… and I. We were the one's obsessed with limbo. In fact, we experimented with it on ourselves first, actually. When I was eleven, we both went in. We went in using sedatives that were heavy enough to send us to limbo. We spent two months down there, just us two. We decided that my father had to see it. We killed ourselves to escape." She let her eyes close momentarily. I noticed the bleeding on the wound had slowed. But I was still listening intently to what she was saying to me.

"We hadn't known how long our two months under had been. So we gave him five minutes of real time. When we let him out, it had been more than a year of solitude for him. It did stuff to his head. He told us he would never teach us again and he banished us all. The public story that Cobb and I told was that it was Raj who did it." Her face twitched and contorted fearfully.

"Darcy, we can sort this out later." I said, trying to calm her. When she panicked, the blood flowed from her wound more heavily.

"It's my fault he's angry. Me and Cobb. We're the reason why he kidnapped you. It's our fault that you're going to end up in limbo," she said. Her eyes were wide and her face was suddenly cogent again. She looked at something over my shoulder for a moment before she lifted her hands up to my face. It was only slightly distracting that they were red and wet. Because then she leaned in and gently put her lips to mine.

I took in everything at once. Suddenly it didn't seem like she was dying anymore. There wasn't anything to worry about. All there was in this whole damn world was just her and me. Her breath was sweet and cool on my mouth when we pulled apart.

"Forgive me," she said, her voice quiet, yet desperate. "Forgive me, Eames, please forgive me." Her eyes focused on that same spot behind me and then, with a sharp bang, Darcy was dead on her side, a bullet wound in her chest. I turned around, and Raj was standing in front of me with a .45 Colt. He smiled wickedly.

"Time's up."

**A/N: Admittedly, that one was a little shorter than some of the others, but the action is finally kicking in now! I won't be able to post for the next few days, but I promise I'll get the next part up soon! Thank you for reading- and please review!**


	8. It Doesn't Matter

"**I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can be together all the time.****" **–**Calvin and Hobbes**

**Eames- First Level, Dream State**

I looked at Raj, horrorstruck. Darcy's body was limp on the ground, dead.

"I'm going to fucking kill you!" I yelled at him. The world around us melted and morphed until we were standing on the roof of a building. Darcy's body was left behind, so it was just me and Raj left.

I stood and stared at him, shaken, shocked.

"Why do you care what happened to her? She's a liar, she told you that she lied. It's all her fault you're here," Raj said furiously.

"You _killed_ her! You sent her to _Limbo_!" I yelled. He looked at me like I was stupid.

"Don't you care that she lied to you?" He asked me. "Don't you care that it's her fault you're here?"

"She didn't act alone, you know that. Her and Cobb, both of them are responsible." I reminded him.

"And Cobb will get what's coming to him," Raj said, a crazy glint in his eye. He smiled suddenly. "Did you know that your little "darling" is only eighteen years old?" He asked me. I froze momentarily, doing the math. I was twenty-eight. She was eighteen. I was ten years older than that kid. Raj was grinning now.

"She's a little lick of jail-bait, isn't she, Mr. Eames?" He laughed. I was surprised by what went through my mind next. _I didn't care_. I didn't care that there was a whole decade between her and me. There was something about her- the maturity she possessed, the way she looked at me… The age difference wasn't important to me.

"It doesn't matter," I informed him. His eyes narrowed.

"Why doesn't this matter to you? You barely know the girl, she lied to you, she's the reason you're here- are you insane?" He asked me, his voice furious. I pondered over this fact.

"That may be the case, _Mr. Raj_. Or maybe, I just have strong loyalties."

"You're ridiculous." Raj snapped at me. "She doesn't deserve anyone. She ruined another person's livelihood- mine! I could have been a better thief that her or Cobb. They knew that it was true. That's why they sabotaged me like that."

"You're barking mad. I know Cobb, he wouldn't do that," I hesitated. "Darcy wouldn't either." In one swift move, he slid across the rooftop and punched me in the face.

"You don't know them like I knew them!" He yelled at me.

"You're delusional," I said, wiping blood from the corner of my mouth. "You lack the talent that Cobb and Darcy possess so you decide it's their fault that you lack it!" He glared at me.

"You have strong loyalties to Cobb. I understand you've worked with him for years. But why Darcy? Why a lying, sniveling little teenager who you barely know?" He asked quietly.

"I… I'm not sure. There's just this… connection. I know I sound like I'm mad, but I'm not. I'm not. I just want her to be safe. I want _her._" I found that the words were just coming out of my mouth now, I had no control over them. His face was blank for a moment, then he looked up at me, his expression detached, much like Darcy's was when she was trying to bury her emotions. I realized that this must have been a learned trait, possibly from Darcy's dad.

"I can't send you down there now, you know," Raj said, looking at me with blank, empty eyes. I looked at him, suddenly very confused.

"Wait, what?" I asked. "Wasn't that the point of having me here? As bait? As a threat to my team?" He looked at me like I was incompetent for maybe the third time in ten minutes. It was really getting old.

"I'm no cartoon villain, Mr. Eames," he said, almost laughing at me. "I don't reveal my plot when I have the upper hand." He turned away from me and before I knew what was happening, he vanished, leaving me alone on the building top. He was just going to leave me here. Darcy would be alone below. I knew she'd escaped Limbo before with Cobb, but I couldn't just leave her. So I ran to the edge of the roof, and jumped.

**Darcy- Limbo**

I sat cross-legged in the baobab tree, on a big, thick branch, watching the sun set. As the last sliver of the sun slipped below the horizon, I turned and looked the other way, watching the sun rise again. You see, it was _my_ limbo. I could bend the forces of nature. Cobb had never been much interested in nature- it had always been about architecture with him. He'd never even considered that he could change these natural elements that were so concrete in real life.

I looked down at my own hands, and then let them rest in my lap. I still didn't know what expanse of time had passed in the real world since I had passed into limbo. But I did know that down here, it must have been a while- I looked to be around twenty. My Irish complexion had always prevented me from tanning in real life, but down here, I had turned a warm bronze color.

I wondered if Eames would ever arrive. The way that Raj had been looking at us, I had this feeling that he was going to send him down with me. For that reason, I had waited, instead of just killing myself upon arrival. I didn't want Eames down here by himself. He was constantly putting on this nonchalant façade, but limbo was different than real life. You couldn't "fake it 'til you make it." You had to be able to put that gun to your own head, or jump off the roof of that building. I was concerned for Eames' nerve.

I didn't think he could do it. Then he appeared on the horizon. I knew it was him. The swagger in his walk and the way he held himself with dignity and pride, even in Limbo.

"Eames!" I yelled. I stood up on the branch of my tree. He looked towards me and even from this distance, I saw his eyes widen.

"Darcy?" He yelled back. He started running towards the tree and I sat back down on the limb, my legs dangling off the edge. I was practically trembling with happiness. With great ease I slid down under the branch I was sitting on, so I was dangling by my arms, then dropped down ten feet with practiced ease.

"I thought you'd never make it," I said, my voice surprisingly soft. I hadn't intended on making our reunion so tender, but all I could think about was the last time I saw him, his warm arms wrapped around me, his gentle lips on mine, his expression- a wave of calm and bliss passing over it. He looked almost equally happy in this moment. He caught me up in a suffocating hug, my head over his shoulder, my feet leaving the ground.

"Darcy, I'm here, I'm here, darling," Eames murmured in my ear. The sensation of his breath on my face made me shiver with pleasure. I hadn't been in contact with another person in years.

"I didn't think that you were coming for me," I admitted. I was breathing heavily, only because he was practically crushing my ribcage. He finally released me, and I dropped clumsily to my feet, beaming up at him as I caught my breath.

"I'd never leave you, not to _his_ mercy," Eames said, with surprising loyalty in his voice. I smiled and went in to hug him again. I was surprised when his hand caught my shoulder. I looked up at him. He smiled at me before leaning in to kiss me.

For me, our first kiss had been stressful. I was in a tremendous amount of pain and what had really spurred me to kiss him was the presence of Raj. I'd known that he was going to send me to limbo. I'd known that I'd be alone down there for a very long time. So I acted on impulse.

This kiss was wonderful. His hands held the sides of my face and our bodies were warm against each other. It lasted for a long time, but that didn't matter. Down here, we had all the time in the world. When we finally pulled away, he was grinning at me, his hands still holding my face, his thumbs rubbing my cheeks, as if to convince himself that I was really here.

I leaned in, and this time, I kissed him. His arms ventured around to my hips and he pulled me closer. Eventually, the kiss wore down and we ended up just hugging, his arms over my shoulders and my arms around his waist.

"It's been so long," I murmured. He just rubbed my back in circles in response. "I thought I'd have to wait for you forever down here." He took my shoulders and held me at arm's length, examining me.

"It looks like you've grown up a bit while I was gone," he observed, his eyes scouring my face.

"You can't imagine the time that's passed," I told him honestly.

"Since you were eighteen?" He asked. It was almost as if he was verifying my age. I nodded slowly.

"Yes, in the real world, I'm eighteen years old. I guess that physically down here, I'm probably twenty." I said thoughtfully. The surprise was barely evident in his face- it was overwhelmed by the happiness.

"You know I'm twenty-eight. Down here and in real life?" Eames asked. So the age thing was bothering him. I looked up at him and let my hands venture to his face. I smiled a little twisted smile.

"I've been to limbo more than once, Eames. I'm what you'd call an expert on the matter. I get in and out of here as easily as I leave other dreams." I informed him, my voice soft. "It's my sanctuary down here and-" I looked at my body. "I suppose that I'm still young physically, but in my head, I've lived so much longer. I've spent years down here before. More than anyone, I'd bet." He looked a little confused.

"So you're…"

"If you're judging by physical age up there, yes, I'm eighteen. But if you want to judge me by the time I've experienced, the life I've lived… I'm probably older than you." I said, biting my lower lip, but still smiling at him. A grin spread across his face.

"Well then, this isn't so bad, is it?" He said, leaning in towards me. It wasn't long before we were in nothing but our skin under the rising sun in Limbo.

That's when I stopped counting my years in Limbo.

I lost track of time.

The problem is that losing track of time is only one step away from losing your grip on reality.

And when you lose your grip on reality, you don't want to let go of the perfection that has become your life.

I know I didn't.

**A/N: I can't tell you how sorry I am that there has been such a long break in publication! I've just gotten back from vacation, after a two-day car ride, so please forgive me! Please leave your comments or criticisms, I love hearing from my readers! Thank you!**


	9. Because We'll Be Together

"**It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else." **

**-Erma Bombeck**

**Nathan- Warehouse on Washington St., Chicago, IL**

When I first woke up, I thought I was experiencing the worst hangover of my life. Then I realized what was actually happening, and _wished_ I was having the worst hangover of my life. We were all dog piled in a cell- me, Jason, Cobb, Arthur, and Ariadne. Arthur was lying across my leg and I found my head resting on Jason's stomach.

"Shi-i-i-it." I said, dragging out the word. I sat up and whacked Jason in the stomach, waking him up.

"What the hell, man?" Jason said, sitting up wearily. I kicked my foot, sliding it out from underneath Arthur. That woke him, and he woke up Ariadne and Cobb. They all looked at their surroundings blearily.

"Aw hell," Jason said after staring around for a moment. Cobb rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and Ariadne leaned into Arthur, looking miserable. The cell was maybe twelve-by-twelve, and we were crammed as it was. Although it did help when Jason stood up. He went and examined the door to our cell. He tried the handle.

"Locked?" Cobb asked, rolling our his neck. There was a small red circle, almost like a bug-bite on his neck. I figured it was from whatever knocked him unconscious earlier.

"Well shit, how long has it been?" Arthur asked. I saw Ariadne reach into her pocket, looking for her totem undoubtedly. Her face paled slightly.

"My totem's gone," she informed us quietly. We all reached into our pockets and all came up empty.

"Okay, whoever's doing this is good," Jason concluded. Without another word he turned towards the door and began working at it with his fingers. We all watched him silently- no one had any better ideas. He looked back at us and we all stared blankly at him.

"Does anyone have a pin or anything like that?" He asked. Wordlessly, Ariadne retracted a hairpin from her hair. Some of her bangs fell down, limp in her face, but Jason looked satisfied with the tool. There was a silence as Jason went back to work. Arthur eyes him skeptically.

"Can you really pick a lock with a hairpin?" He asked. For an answer, Jason gave one final tweak to the lock, looking at it critically. Then, with surprising speed and force, he slammed his foot into the handle and the door swung open. Arthur's jaw dropped slightly before he could collect himself.

"Alright, kid. You're badass," Arthur said a little weakly. Ariadne gave him a smile and Jason shrugged modestly.

"I try. Now, who wants out?" Jason said. There was a note of pride in his voice that I hadn't heard there before. He was usually a pretty quiet kid. We all stood and exited the room cautiously, Jason and Arthur covering Ariadne and Cobb and I leading. We were in a hallway, studded with doors leading to rooms like the one we'd been in. All the doors were open, save two. I don't think the others noticed right away.

"Is this a jail?" Jason asked, his question directed at me.

"I think it's a mental institution," Cobb answered, cutting me off. We all turned to look at him.

"Do you know where we are?" Arthur asked sharply. Cobb went into one of the rooms and peered through a small window on the wall. It was barred, so no one could escape through it.

"I think this is Addams Memorial. It's in Springfield," Cobb said, squinting out the window. I followed him into the room and looked out the window. Two stories down, I could make out the writing on the sign as well.

"Hey, there's a couple of doors that are closed out here," Ariadne piped up. I decided to let her take the credit for discovering that.

"Jason can get us in," Arthur said. Jason looked only slightly apprehensive.

"Eames could be in there. Darcy could be in there," Cobb told Jason seriously. He paused for only a second before going to work on the first door. In only moments, there was another loud bang and the door was open.

"You have to teach me how to kick like that," Arthur said offhand to Jason as he and Ariadne entered the room.

"They're here!" Ariadne said, her voice shrill. Cobb and I followed the three younger dreamers into another cell, very similar to our own. Eames was propped up against the corner. Darcy was right next to him, her head on his chest. I noticed that his arms were slung around her in a protective stance. Good. At least he'd had the brains to take care of the her in the way he could. They were both hooked up to a feed that still had a couple of minutes on the clock.

"Do you think they're in Limbo?" Arthur asked. But Cobb was staring at Darcy, transfixed. If I wasn't mistaken, his eyes were welling up.

"Cobb!" I said a little snappily. He looked back at me.

"She's grown up," he said. I found this a little weird, but didn't object to his behavior.

"Due to be nineteen next month," I said a little rigidly. He nodded.

"Should we wake them up yet?" Arthur asked, clearly not a fan of being ignored. There was a loud bang on the door and a guy was standing in front of us in a hooded sweatshirt. There was a gun in his hand.

"Don't touch them or I'll shoot," he said. His hand was shaking a little, but his voice was firm. So all of us slowly, reluctantly, put our hands in the air.

**Eames- Limbo (10 Years Have Passed)**

It's getting harder for me to remember my life outside of Limbo. A life where I didn't spend every moment with Darcy, where there was work to be done. I can't imagine having to spend a minute without her anymore. She's become what I live for. And she didn't ever imply that she wanted to return to the real world. For all I knew, she had forgotten it.

"Eames?" She asked me. We were lying on our stomachs under the shade of a baobab, watching the sun set. I scooted closer to her so our shoulders were touching.

"What is it?" I asked. She turned so she was facing me instead of the setting sun, and she rested her head on her arms.

"Do you remember that place we used to live? That place with all the buildings?" She asked. I felt myself scowl slightly.

"You mean our real lives?" I asked. I was gentle in my reminder. It was her turn to scowl. She stared at the cracked dirt on the ground.

"Is that what that was? It's all so fuzzy, I can hardly remember it," she said, running her fingernail through the dirt.

"That's a shame, darling," I said. I kept my voice light, trying to bury my concerns. "But what was it you wanted to ask about our lives?"

"Do you ever think about going back?" She asked me. "I mean, there are things in that world that we don't have here, right?" I licked my lips. It was always hard remembering what we'd left behind.

"I do think about it sometimes, Dar. I miss people there, I miss places there," I frowned slightly, thinking about all the memories. She bit her lower lip.

"That's just the problem, Eames. I can't remember all those things anymore. I… I can't remember who I was friends with. I don't know where I was living at the time… I'm forgetting everything, Eames," she spoke nervously. I hadn't heard her so tense in years.

"Don't worry Darcy, it'll all come back." I reassured her. I wasn't sure myself. Cobb and Mal hadn't experienced that.

"It's just that- I've been figuring all of this out- and Eames, I've spent just as much time in Limbo as I have in my other life. I mean, it must have been ten or eleven years since we got here. I may have spent more time here than anywhere else in the world. Not that I want to leave," she added. I closed my eyes sadly. Here was the sure sign that we had to leave this place.

"I'm taking you home, darling," I said, finding her hand with mine. She gave it a nervous squeeze, and I rubbed her thumb with mine. "It's going to be okay." She turned over on her side so she was looking straight at me.

"When we go home, I think I'll still be in love with you," she professed. I gave her my most confident smile.

"And I will still love you with all my heart, dearest. Is that what you're worried about?" I asked. She furrowed her brow, thinking hard.

"No, that's not the problem. It's just that… Eames, I think you were a lot older than me out there," she said. She chewed on her lower lip nervously. "Will you still love me if I'm just a child?" It sounded funny when she said it like that. But I just moved closer to her, enveloping her in a tight hug.

"I'll love you no matter where we go, no matter what," I said to her. She looked up at me with sad eyes and we shared an understanding.

"Then it's time to go home." She said. She looked around at her pretty little world. "Because this isn't home, right?" I nodded firmly. I didn't like that she had to ask.

After saying our goodbyes to this little savannah of ours, we went to our baobab tree. It was taller than it was when we first got here- thicker too. I had to boost up Darcy so she could get up to the lowest branch, and likewise, she had to help pull me up. Once we had both caught our breath on that branch, we ventured higher in the tree. The smaller branches scraped our arms and faces, but I don't think either of us minded. We were too focused on the task at hand.

Once we were as high as we could go, we stopped and looked at each other. Fear was evident in Darcy's face.

"Are you sure that this isn't our reality, Eames? It feels so real to me?" She asked me suddenly. She was having her doubts. I'd been here for probably a decade, and she'd been here longer. I could hardly blame her.

"I'm sure it is Darcy. We have to go home, you and me." I told her sternly. She nodded, and then looked out across the plains. We hadn't built a single building together, but we had created a forest, a river, a mountain range and two lakes. I'd never known dreaming like this. I would miss it, admittedly. But I had to keep reminding myself- I had to go back to what was real.

"We're jumping together, right?" Darcy asked nervously.

"Together," I confirmed. She nodded. The color had drained from her face, and I could see that she still had her doubts. She looked at me quickly, a little panic in her eyes.

"I trust you, Eames. I trust that you're right," she warned me.

"I am right, darling," I told her. I was right, wasn't I?

"Then let's jump," she said. Her voice raised an octave. Her fear was contagious, but I fought to keep my voice calm.

"On three," I told her. She nodded, even though she looked like she was going to pass out.

"Right," she said. "One." I swallowed hard and took her hand tightly.

"Two," I said. I looked at her. She wasn't going to jump. She couldn't do it. She started backing towards the center of the tree, shaking her head.

"Eames, I can't-."

"Three," I said, and pulling her as hard as I could, we both plunged out of the tree and down towards reality.

**A/N: I know it's been a long time (again), but school is just around the corner and I've started my summer reading homework, and it's kept me busy. I will finish this story, probably within a week or two, so just bear with me.**

**Also, props to jennedy who pointed out my mistake with aging. I've edited that part so it follows the rules better. Thank you for reminding me about that!**


	10. Repercussions

"**Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there."**

**Addams Memorial**

**Eames**

I woke with a start, inhaling sharply. I knew I was back because the air wasn't as clean. It was thick and smoggy in my lungs. I could sense the difference, even though it didn't look any thicker. Darcy was leaning on me, her head on my chest. For half a moment, I feared that she hadn't died with me. But then my fears were neutralized she gasped as she was pulled out of her dream as well, jumping slightly. I pulled her into my chest in a tight hug as soon as I realized that she was crying. She was a little girl again, an old soul in a young body.

I looked up and was shocked to find our room occupied. Arthur, Ariadne, Cobb, and two others I didn't know were being held at gunpoint by Raj. They all glanced at us and I looked back at my team as if they had returned from the dead. Their faces were so alien- I hadn't seen them for ten years. And then I realized that it was I who had returned.

"I see that they've woken up," Raj said in a mocking tone. He smiled crookedly. "Aw, is Darcy sad?" He asked in a baby voice. Darcy didn't even look up at his jibe. But Cobb looked absolutely infuriated.

"Don't you talk to her-"

"Oh go shove it up your ass, Cobb." Raj said, suddenly sounding bored. Cobb fumed, but bit his lower lip and said nothing. Raj turned back towards me and Darcy, who had calmed down a bit at my side. I kept holding her anyways.

"You failed, you bastard," I spat at Raj. I pulled the IV leads out of my own arm and then out of Darcy's, taking care not to hurt her in the process. Raj looked at me with his head on a tilt and cocked the gun in his hand.

"Want to bet, you fucking forger?" Raj asked. His pistol had six bullet slots. If he used all those bullets and hit a different target every time, one of us would get out alive, but that wasn't an inspiring probability. I pressed my lips together and said nothing. Darcy had stopped crying when Raj spoke hatefully to me. She looked up at him with wide, angry eyes. Her fear was gone. This was a Darcy I'd only seen a few times before. She was cool, collected, and absolutely irrevocably pissed off at him.

"Don't talk to him like that," she demanded. She got to her feet, a little wobbly from all the sedation. But she still stared down Raj, who looked amused.

"So I see that during your years in Limbo, you two have become a "thing."" Raj said mockingly. I expected Darcy to shy away a little at this, but she instead stood taller than before.

"You thought it would break us." Darcy said proudly. "You thought that we'd hate each other. You've never been so wrong."

"It didn't matter how you felt about each other," Raj said. But he looked slightly flustered. "I'm killing you anyways. You, Cobb, your fucking merry men who follow you around. They're all idiots. And you're an idiot. I'm going to shoot everyone here." He pointed the gun at Ariadne who cowered, a scream ready on her lips. Out of nowhere, one of the guys I didn't know tackled Raj. He just jumped on him, as if there was no gun in Raj's hand. It fired twice into the guy, but he didn't stop fighting.

"Jason!" Ariadne screamed. The rest of the shots went off, and I counted them. _Three, four, five, six._ Not all of them made contact with the guy named Jason. Some ricocheted off the walls, and I saw Arthur cover Ariadne in the way that I was covering Darcy. I finally knew how he felt about that architect. He couldn't let anything hurt her, or it would hurt him. When the gun was out of bullets, Raj pushed Jason off of his chest and made a break down the hall.

Cobb, Darcy and I immediately made to follow him. Cobb stopped in the doorway and we all looked back at Arthur, Ariadne, Jason, and the other team member of Darcy's. They all waved us on.

"We'll take care of him," Arthur said quietly. We all nodded to acknowledge this and set off at a sprint in pursuit of Raj. We saw him turn a corner up ahead and he ran down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor. When we burst through the door, he was standing in a large open room that had probably once been a cafeteria, looking around for another way out. Cobb and I slowed, but Darcy kept running at him.

"Darcy, come back," I yelled at her. I didn't know if he had another gun, or any other sort of weapon. She couldn't get hurt. Not again.

"Dar!" Cobb yelled at her. She reached Raj and jumped onto his back, attempting to flatten him. Apparently, she had expected him to be weak and fold under her weight, but he instead toppled backwards and slammed to the ground on top of her on the linoleum. Cobb and I reached him only a millisecond later and grabbed him by the arms, allowing Darcy to move out from under him before we knocked him to the floor. I made sure that I swung his head down hard enough, so that if he had inflicted any more pain on my girl, he'd be getting it back tenfold. Darcy was on her feet in an instant, again a little shaky, but she was glaring down at him, looking wholly unharmed.

"Fucker," she spat at him. I couldn't remember hearing Darcy speak so vulgarly before. Raj looked back up at her, a vengeance in his eye.

"I'll still get you someday you whore. Don't doubt it. I'm going to find you and kill you, short and sweet." He said, his voice sickeningly gleeful. She flinched momentarily at this before regaining her composure. But I wasn't going to stand for that. He was threatening her. My Darcy.

I saw a gun that had seemingly slid across the floor, probably knocked away by Darcy when she tackled him. In a moment, I realized how close she had come to being shot again by Raj- this time in real life. The blood was pounding in my ears as I imagined what could have happened. I knew what I had to do. I had to keep Dar safe. That would never happen while this sick fucker was still alive. I took four strides to reach the gun, picked it up, and took two strides back. I held it menacingly above him.

"You going to kill me, Eames?" He smiled, blood covering his teeth from where I had slammed his head into the ground. I cocked the gun and fired once, hitting him in the forehead. His whole head snapped backwards and his eyes rolled back in his head. Cobb and Darcy both looked at me with blank shock. I spat on Raj's corpse.

"Yes I am, _darling_," I answered him. Darcy looked at me for a moment, freezing. Then she charged me and hugged me around the waist. Her body fit perfectly into mine as we kissed- we'd had years of practice. When we pulled apart, she turned to Cobb who was watching us with a look of blank shock. He regained his composure almost at once.

"Mr. Dom?" She said a little weakly. He smiled, stepping away from the corpse and towards her.

"Hey, Dar," he said. He was using the voice that he reserved for only James and Phillipa. I realized quickly that she had been in his life before either of them. She was like a daughter to him too. When they hugged, it was simply paternal. Their relationship made sense. It seemed completely natural. She looked up at him seriously.

"Dom, you've been doing Inception," she scolded him. I was shocked at how quickly she changed the subject from the dead man on the floor, but understood it. She had to put it out of her mind for a while, until she could compartmentalize. So I watched the proceedings between Dom and Dar. For a moment, it was as if their roles were reversed- she was the parent and he was the reluctant child. He looked guilty and I wondered why this was such a problem.

"I needed to, to get back to the US, to my kids," he explained. Her smile became a little fixed. She hadn't known about his children. It must have been quite a shock to her to see the dear old father figure had moved on. Then, sudden realization seemed to hit her.

"We're going to talk about this later, Mr. Dom Cobb, I can promise you that. But right now- we need to go see Jason."

**Arthur**

The sound of the shots that had fired into Jason's body reverberated in my skull. I remember the looks of shock on everyone's faces. Ariadne screamed. I was surprised that Darcy didn't. She seemed to be the most volatile. She just watched with wide, distant eyes. When the bullets missed Jason's body, and they were bouncing off the walls, I saw Eames cover Darcy the way that I was covering Ariadne and I couldn't help but be sidetracked- what had happened between them down there?

When Eames and Cobb and Darcy went after Raj, and that left me and Jason, Ariadne and Nathan. Nathan was clearly torn. He had suddenly been reunited with his long lost cousin, who was really so much like his daughter or sister. He was overjoyed. But then again, his friend, his teammate, was down for the count, with three bullet wounds in his shoulder and chest. Nathan couldn't focus, so I found myself at the helm.

"Listen, Jason, Jason, bud, can you hear me? Don't answer that. Just, if you can hear me, then just… you keep it up. You keep breathing, and you stay alive, we're going to get you some help." I said. Jason's eyes were open, but clearly unable to focus on anything. They kept moving around, looking for the source of my voice. He had broken out in a cold sweat and he was already soaked in his own blood, which was pooling on the floor. When he coughed, blood came out.

Gently, I sat him up a little, looking checking out his back.

"There are no exit wounds," I informed Ariadne seriously. She had been sitting there, frozen, ever since the first shot. Her eyes drifted over to mine at a painfully slow rate.

"What… what does that mean for him?" I bit my lower lip and tried hard to think of a delicate way to put this.

"There's no way he'd make it to any hospital in time," Nathan said bluntly, his bright eyes dulling as he looked mournfully at his fallen point man. In a quick, jerky motion, Jason grabbed at Ariadne's arm.

"You're… safe?" He asked. Ariadne, whose eyes were filling with tears, nodded to him. Then the young man turned his gaze on me. His eyes were blank, and I wondered if he could even see me at all.

"You'll keep her safe?" He asked me, his breath coming laboriously.

"I will," I answered him surely. He nodded, then laid his head back.

"And you'll… keep Darcy safe?" Jason asked Nathan.

"Don't you worry about Darcy and Ariadne right now, Jason," Nathan chastised him gently. Jason swallowed hard, and then licked his lips, smearing crimson blood over them.

"Darcy's gotten her ass kicked… for me. And Ariadne's… my friend." Jason said, scowling slightly. "You keep them safe." He commanded.

"We will, Jason, just… try to hold on, okay?" Nathan said. Jason nodded slowly, painfully. But no one made any attempts to move him. We just wanted him to hold on for our sake.

And as Darcy, Cobb, and Eames came skidding around the corner, Jason drew a last shuddering breath, before going still. I wondered how this could have happened- how could I have hated Jason so much only a few hours ago? Because as I watched him die, I felt nothing but remorse for the friend I had lost.

**A/N: There's really nothing more to say than I'm sorry and thank you to any readers who have stuck around. The junior year workload has hit hard, so that's my lame excuse for being gone for so long. I hope to finish the story in the next chapter or two to find some closure. Thank you to anyone whose stayed with the story!**


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